Little Moments

There are these golden moments where I can see how blessed we are and I have to take a picture just so I can look back later and remember those tender feelings.  These people are in my everyday moments and I'm so grateful.  We aren't perfect and things don't always go perfectly, but I'm glad to have them with me each day.

Once upon a time

Once upon a time we got a dog.  We named him Rex (short for Sam-o-saurus Rex).  He loved Roy best of all.  Unfortunately for all of us, Rex wasn't the best match for our family.  He's a sweet dog and was filled with so much love for Roy.  As much fun as he had with the kids, he had a hard time remembering that they are people and not litter mates.  He was nipping at them and all our tricks weren't helping so we had to take him back to his foster mom.  We also felt like he would be happier in a home with less kids and a yard with more places to dig and explore.  Abby misses him a lot, but the other kids seem relieved.  We did get some sweet pictures of Rex and we are grateful for what we learned during the 11 days we got to have him in our home.

Christmas Eve

The excitement in our home was palpable as Christmas Even crept forward.  We were definitely busy and had a lot of fun, but I thought the kids were going to burst with joy and excitement.  Seeing them all dressed in their new Christmas Eve pajamas and seeing how happy they were feeling brought back lots of memories of when I was growing up.  It's so fun to be a parent around Christmastime!

We had Grandma, Baba, and our friends over for Christmas Eve.  We started out the night by playing some silly Christmas games.

Earlier in the day we went to this funny little thrift store where we found all sorts of silly things.  We had to pose with a Justin Bieber poster for my dad who loves to laugh at "the Biebs".  And you must admire Sam's awesome style.  This kid is so funny

Lydia took it upon herself to organize the Christmas gifts.  She needed to be sure we were prepared for Christmas morning :)

Snow Weekend

Saturday 

5:57 am: Abby comes in asking if it finally started snowing

6:04 am: Abby and Sam, "Is it snowing now?"

     Lots of noise, giggling, and excitement

6:30 am: Abby, Sam, and Lydia, "What about now?"

Then they go and read in the other room while I try to convince myself that I will be able to go back to sleep.  When I am finally unsuccessful, I look outside to see the snow has just started to fall and cover the several inches of ice that had fallen all night long.  After getting dressed and eating breakfast they were outside for round 1 in the snow by 7:15.  Over the 5 days we had snow and ice on the ground, we were outside for at least 12 rounds of sledding, ice ball launching, and shaky attempts to climb up hills of ice.

Abby made cinnamon rolls for us for snack one day :)

One of my favorite moments of the whole weekend was watching my girls walk back up the hill after sledding together and put their arms around each other.

This is the view from our front door.  If you look carefully you can see a string of Zwahlens climbing the hill

Andrew enjoyed sledding, but he had an equal amount of fun just watching the kids slip and slide all over the ice while he watched from the toasty warm house.

The best way to spend post-sledding: in front of a fire watching a movie.  We watched several Harry Potter movies this week.  Abby is almost done reading the series and she and Sam especially enjoyed the movies.  Andrew and Lydia disappeared and watched much tamer shows :)